LA Complex Television Show: New Gay Black Men Storyline Tariq & Kal Make Out!!!
A new television show called the LA Complex has arrived on Much Music and one storyline deals with gay black men! Of course, I am pleased to see a gay storyline involving gay black men because there is a paucity of our representation on television.
However, a part of me is conflicted because a closeted rapper on the down low that’s kind of lame. It seems very stereotypical to me and a myopic representation of gay black men.
One guy is supposed to hard and tough like a thug and I guess the other guy is supposed to soft. So a black man has to be a rapper and in the closet? Couldn’t the characters be actors or something else other than musicians? So of course black men can only be rap artists in the music industry.
Why does a young black man have to be a stereotypical rap artist ? Give me a break!
Black men whether gay or straight are still stereotyped into binary constructions which are deleterious.
I wish the writers would expand a bit about the possibilities about the realities of gay black men. However, I understand the LA Complex is a fiction and a television show. I will continue to watch the show but I cringe at the character that is supposed to be the hard rapper.
Article Examines Middle Class Racism In Feminist Movement Against Women Of Colour.
Racist Feminism at the National Women’s Studies Association
Date: June 28, 2008
In March, I was invited to speak at the “tribute panel” dedicated to Black feminist thought, especially the work and life of Audre Lorde during the National Women’s Studies Association. I felt honored, and more than slightly intimidated, to be selected to address the importance of Audre Lorde’s work in my own life as well as in the feminist movement at large. Other panelists were Kaila Adia Story (University of Louisville) and Melinda L. de Jesus (California College of the Arts).
It was during my second year of college I was first introduced to the writings of Audre in a Women’s Studies course. Throughout the academic term, students read several articles each week, discussed them in the class, and wrote journal entries that reflect on the week’s readings. Week after week, most of the assigned materials were those written by white, middle-class, straight (or sometimes “political lesbian”) women, and I was having difficulty relating to much of what was being discussed. I kept writing in my journal how I didn’t relate to the reading, but I did not realize it had anything to do with the selection of the materials. I felt bad about being so “negative” about feminism and feminists.
Toward the end of the term, one week was dedicated to the work of “women of color” (yes, a whole week–woo hoo!). If I remember correctly, it consisted of selections from the anthology “This Bridge Called My Back” (Combahee River Collective statement, and I think one of the Cherrie Moraga’s pieces) and Audre Lorde’s “Sister Outsider.” For the first time, these articles spoke to me. They gave voice to my feelings of alienation and frustration that I could not point a finger on. And even though it was just a week out of the entire term, and it is possibly the worst form of tokenism within the discipline, they anchored me to feminism and Women’s Studies to this date. Without “Sister Outsider,” I may not have been a feminist today.
But one week was not enough for me to gain the confidence and strength it took to speak out when I find myself surrounded by white middle-class feminists who seemed oblivious to the emotional pain and sadness their racist or classist statements and actions caused. It was not enough to just read things written by Audre and others like her; I needed to actually construct a support system around me, people of all races and genders who are passionately committed to justice in all aspects of society and to empathically holding each other accountable.
In summer of 2000, I moved to Portland, Oregon–the first large city I lived as an adult. On my second day in Portland, I met Diana Courvant, a white transsexual woman who founded Survivor Project to address the needs of trans and intersex survivors of domestic and sexual violence. Also a survivor with a complex history around gender and sexual identities, I immediately became involved with Survivor Project. It also helped that Diana was a veteran of multi-issue social justice organizing, and I learned a lot from her.
But as I got to know Diana, I also learned that not all feminists embraced trans people. In fact, she was at the time trapped in the middle of the worst nightmare of controversy within Portland’s lesbian/feminist community, which she later wrote about (see “Speaking of Privilege” in “This Bridge We Call Home,” edited by Gloria Anzaldua and AnaLouise Keating). To put it short: Diana was invited to a women’s retreat in the Oregon forest, which after she accepted the invitation instituted a “no penis” policy banning transsexual women who had not have sex reassignment surgery from attending. She declined to participate, but held a workshop on trans issues outside with the help of non-trans allies. The workshop was successful, but a rumor was spread shortly thereafter alleging that she trespassed on the women-only retreat and exposed herself. It was obviously false, but extremely hurtful.
It was in response to this climate I wrote the piece “The Transfeminist Manifesto,” which was later published in the anthology “Catching a Wave: Reclaiming Feminism for the 21st Century” edited by Rory Dicker and Alison Piepmeier. The manifesto addressed various feminist concerns, such as reproductive choice and health and violence against women, and discussed how transsexual women share many of the concerns of other women. I wanted to write a feminist theory that counter the argument that transsexual women were so different from all other women that there is no place for transsexual women within feminism (or that feminism has no use for transsexual women). I wanted to provide easy-to-repeat arguments that pro-trans feminists can use to confront blatant bigotry and falsehoods against transsexual women. And to these ends, I think “Manifesto” was successful.
But there was something unsettling about the “Manifesto.” In an effort to forge an alliance between transsexual and non-transsexual women, the piece neglected the struggles of transsexual men and other transgender or genderqueer people who do not identify as “women” unless it was convenient to include them. The piece was also weak on intersectional analysis–that is, how anti-trans sentiments and oppressions compound and complicate oppressions other than sexism, including and especially racism and classism. It borrowed from the work of women of color when it was useful–for example, to point out that transsexual women’s unique experiences should not be the basis for their exclusion because to do so would presuppose a singular universal female experience, which is obviously false–without contributing any insights as to how the inclusion of trans sensibility helps to fight racism and other oppressions.
The fact is, I had only been living in my new home town for three months or so when I wrote this piece, and I was not fully in touch with my own discomfort with the white feminism that filled nine out of ten weeks of the Introduction to Women’s Studies, nor did I feel confident enough to challenge the view that feminism is simply about advocating for women and fighting sexism–and nothing more. In short, what I had written was a version of white feminism that was modified just enough to include transsexual women. At the time, I felt that it was the only safe way to write a feminist theory that advanced transsexual women’s place within feminism. I spent next couple of years meeting more people with a common commitment for justice for all, slowly building the self-confidence it takes to “transform silence into language and action,” as Audre famously stated.
What I will discuss below is one such silence that was turned into language and action.
The invitation to speak at the panel honoring the legacy of Audre Lorde stated: “NWSA would be please to offer you complimentary conference registration as a way of thanking you for your time and expertise. Regrettably, however, NWSA has a limited budget and cannot cover your travel expenses.” But I am not a career academic, and without regular employment I cannot afford to spend hundreds of dollars just to speak at an academic conference. I wrote back explaining my situation and asking for financial assistance to attend the conference, to which the executive director of NWSA repeated, “NWSA would be able to offer complimentary membership and registration; I certainly wish we could do more.”
I began talking to some members of Governing Council (board of directors of NWSA) I happen to know, and asked them to advocate on my behalf; they emailed the director, but the response was the same. I also learned that another long-time queer social justice activist I respect was invited by NWSA last year, but she had to turn down the invitation due to the organization’s unwillingness to cover her travel expense. I could decline the invitation too, but then NWSA could go on every year attempting to exploit activists while pretending to honor and support their work without anyone challenging them on it, so I decided to do something different: I wrote to WMST-L, an international Women’s Studies email list with thousands of subscribers, explaining the circumstance and asking people to write to the NWSA to protest its practice, and to donate some money for me to attend the conference.
Within days, I received a dozen or so offers of contributions, and just as many apparently wrote to the executive director of NWSA, including members of Governing Council. Lesbian Caucus chair Lisa Burke, Women of Color Caucus co-chair Pat Washington, and Bisexual/Transgender Interest Group rep Joelle Ruby Ryan were among the most supportive. But that was when things began turning bizarre. The executive director apparently told some of my supporters that I was already being provided a hotel room on NWSA’s money, implicitly suggesting that I was being dishonest or possibly running a scheme to defraud well-intentioned feminist scholars. Thinking that the director perhaps changed her mind and decided to fund at least some of my expenses, I contacted NWSA again–only to be told that nothing had changed and I was still on my own (albeit with the help of many supporters).
I received enough donations to cover most of my expenses, so I flew to Cincinnati to take part in the tribute panel. In my speech, I talked about how I discovered the work of Audre Lorde, how important it was, and yet how reading her books was not enough to genuinely feel empowered. I read from a postscript I wrote for “The Transfeminist Manifesto” and how that piece reflects a period in my life in which I was cautiously negotiating my place within feminism. Then I spoke about the panel itself, and how I seriously struggled whether or not I should participate in this celebration of Audre Lorde and her work, when the very structure of the forum betrayed her legacy.
I have to wonder, I said, if Audre were still around, she would accept the invitation to speak at this conference under such humiliating circumstances. Audre does not deserve this. And this “tribute panel” was not the proper way to honor and memorialize Audre’s contribution to Women’s Studies. And part of the reason I felt ambivalent about speaking on this panel was due to the fear that my presence at the conference might help legitimatize what is fundamentally illegitimate.
Audre herself faced similar circumstance in 1979, when she was invited to speak in the “only panel at [Second Sex Conference, held at New York University] where the input of Black feminists and lesbians is represented,” despite the fact that she accepted the invitation “with the understanding that [Lorde] would be commenting upon papers dealing with the role of difference within the lives of american women,” which would not be possible “without a significant input from poor women, Black and Third World women, and lesbians.” Her talk, titled “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House,” which is included in “Sister Outsider,” is not nearly as well understood as the title is known.
When Audre said “master’s tools,” what she was referring to was white, middle-class, straight feminists’ unwillingness to recognize the differences among women along the lines of race, class, sexuality, etc. By failing to seize the strength that could come from the acknowledgement of differences, not just between white and Black women, but also among Black women–why did the organizers fail to involve more Black women, as if expecting Audre to represent all Black women?–she alleges that many white feminists are complicit in maintaining the racist, homophobic patriarchy.
In a different text, also part of “Sister Outsider,” Audre once declared that she would never talk to white women about racism again. Obviously that was not the last time she did, but I have no doubt that she frequently struggled with the urge to give up. Part of the reason I decided finally to attend the conference and to speak at the tribute was the recognition that I stand on the shoulders of Audre Lorde and her contemporaries, many of whom are still alive but many are gone. The panel was successful, and the discussion involving three panelists and the audience lasted almost three hours even though it was originally scheduled for only 75 minutes.
During the delegate assembly on the next day, Lisa Burke from the lesbian caucus spoke out. The executive director had promised her that she would “take care of” my situation, which was understood to mean that NWSA would at the least provide my housing for the conference, and yet somehow it did not happen. The director responded that NWSA did in fact booked a room for me and paid for it out of its account, and blamed her assistant, a Black woman who was not present in the room, for the “miscommunication.” Lisa protested this act of scapegoating and called for the organization to reimburse me for the lodging expense and to issue an official apology. Every delegate voted in favor of the motion. The resolution almost made me feel guilty, partly because another woman of color is pitted against me and blamed for the whole ordeal, and partly because the thought of a $170/night room sitting empty for me is too wasteful for me to think about.
I called the hotel next morning to find out how much NWSA had paid for the room that I did not know was reserved for me, but the clerk informed me that there was no record of reservation for any nights this past week. There is still a remote possibility that NWSA made a reservation at another hotel nearby because the conference hotel was sold out. But that seems unlikely, especially since the organization had no idea which date I was planning to come to Cincinnati or to go home. It is too depressing to think that the executive director of a national feminist, scholarly institution would engage in such pattern of dishonesty and racism in the process of organizing and hosting a tribute to the legacy of Audre Lorde.
In a sense, the tribute panel turned out to be the perfect commemoration of Audre’s legacy. It exposed the ugly reality of what Audre calls “racist feminism,” which was lurking behind the superficial public rhetoric of anti-racism. It brought up intense emotions, including anger, and we sought to channel them for constructive uses. We paid tribute to Audre the best way we could, which was not by reading some academic papers about her, but by being passionately engaged in the struggle against the oppression of all people. I hope that I did my part to make her proud.
Shocking News: Medical Journal Finds Some Asian Canadian Immigrants Are Using Sex Selection Technology & Aborting Female Fetuses.
Bid to curb female feticide pushes hot buttons of abortion and culture
JOE FRIESEN AND CARLY WEEKS
From Tuesday’s Globe and Mail
Published Monday, Jan. 16, 2012 12:45PM EST
Last updated Tuesday, Jan. 17, 2012 5:49AM EST
- Abortion and multiculturalism, two of the most contentious areas of Canadian public policy, were placed on a collision course Monday by the country’s leading medical journal.
Rajendra Kale, interim editor of the Canadian Medical Association Journal, called for a ban on disclosing the sex of a fetus until 30 weeks, a point at which abortions are difficult to obtain. His editorial cited research that suggests some Asian immigrants are aborting unwanted females.
The move ignited opposition on several sides, from those who decried any curtailing of a woman’s right to information about her pregnancy to those who questioned the accuracy of research that paints Asian immigrants as more prone to abort girls.
“Frankly I’m disgusted,” Dr. Kale said in an interview, referring to sex-selective abortion. “There’s no way this should happen in Canada. This is discrimination against women at its worst.”
The national body representing Canada’s obstetricians and gynecologists contends that Dr. Kale’s proposal flies in the face of accepted standards for patient care and fails to acknowledge that changing deep-rooted cultural beliefs, not imposing heavy-handed restrictions, is the key.
The editorial was based in part on unpublished research by University of British Columbia economist Kevin Milligan and two colleagues at Columbia University.
The researchers found, using census data, that if Canadians of Indian descent have two girls, a third child is nearly twice as likely to be a boy than would otherwise be expected. The study also looked at religious background. Christian and Muslim immigrants from Asia whose first two children are girls have an almost equal ratio of male and female third children. But for Sikhs and a group the researchers called non-Christian, non-Muslim (primarily non-religious Chinese and Hindus), a third baby born after two girls was twice as likely to be male.
“This is quite clear evidence that the sex mix we’re getting is not one that’s happening naturally,” Prof. Milligan said.
And the trend does not appear to dissipate with the Canadian-born second generation, he said.
Also cited in Dr. Kale’s editorial is a U.S. study of 65 female Indian immigrants that found that 40 per cent had previously aborted a female fetus and 90 per cent of those currently pregnant with a girl had pursued the idea of abortion. Although research on the subject in Canada is still developing, scholars have long argued that India and China have a gender imbalance that suggests significant sex-selective abortion.
Despite a lack of conclusive Canadian figures, many health experts agree female feticide is a small, but serious, problem among some immigrant groups. Prabhat Jha, director of the Centre for Global Health Research at the University of Toronto, is conducting a study to pinpoint, for the first time, the rate of female feticide in Canada.
Dr. Jha said that until there is a clear picture of the scale of the problem and which communities are involved, it’s premature to adopt the restrictive measures suggested by Dr. Kale’s editorial.
“You need to think carefully if the solution does more harm than good,” he said.
One or two of every 50 clients treated at the women’s health clinic run by Progressive Intercultural Community Services in Vancouver has aborted a female fetus for gender reasons, according to Pardeep Sahota, director of communications. Ms. Sahota said many women face tremendous pressure to have sons and don’t understand their rights here.
“We’ve had clients that have had repeat abortions based on sex selection,” Ms. Sahota said. “We’ve had women tell us they’ve sometimes had a doctor encourage them to abort.”
Balpreet Singh of the World Sikh Organization said he knows sex selection is an issue in Asia and suspects it exists in Canada as well.
“Sex selection of fetuses is reprehensible. The Sikh faith actually forbids the practice,” Mr. Singh said. “Any steps to end the practice are good ones.”
Other organizations, such as the South Asian Women’s Centre and the Immigrant Women’s Health Centre in Toronto, said they didn’t know of a single case of a woman seeking a sex-selective abortion.
“I don’t think that any one of our councillors in 30 years of serving immigrant women has had someone say I want to know the sex of the fetus before getting an abortion,” said Ayesha Adhami, administrative co-ordinator at the IWHC. “We’re a little concerned about there being racial stereotypes around this, and whether or not it’s actually happening in Canada is hard to say.”
Dr. Kale has been interim editor-in-chief at the CMAJ since last fall and has consistently made headlines with his editorials, including a piece that called for an end to hospital parking fees.
Originally from India, Dr. Kale worked as a senior editor at the British Medical Journal before taking a position with the CMAJ as senior deputy editor in 2008.
In the editorial released Monday, he said a ban on revealing the sex of a fetus until the 30th week of pregnancy – information he describes as “medically irrelevant” – would require only a temporary compromise from women of all ethnicities and could save thousands of girls.
First Round Australian Open 2012 Shocking Upset: Sorana Cirstea Upsets US Open Champion Samantha Stosur 7-6 6-3!!!
Once again, Australian tennis star Samantha Stosur can’t handle the pressure performing at home! Sorana Cirstea upset Stosur 7-6 6-3 in the first round of the 2012 Australian Open.
Cirstea played well she attacked Sam’s weak backhand which she slices a lot and charged to the net. Samantha looked confused on the court and lost she wasn’t aggressive enough.
I believe Sam put too much pressure on herself she just doesn’t do well when she is expected to succeed. I thought Samantha had turned the corner when she blasted Serena Williams off the court at the US OPEN five months ago in September 2010 6-2 6-3. The Australian media is also to blame they expect too much from Samantha she is a talented player but she is also very inconsistent! Sam is too erratic, too up and down to become a top five or top three player.
Australian Open Women’s First Round: Agnieszka Radwanska def Bethanie Mattek-Sands 6-7, 6-4, 6-2 In Three Hour Match!!!
Agnieszka Radwanska the eighth women’s seed from Poland defeated American Bethanie Mattek-Sands in the first round of the Australian Open. The two women fought hard Agnieszka fought back from a set down to win 6-7 6-4 6-2 in three hours. Agnieszka started the match slowly because she wasn’t moving to the ball well. However, in the second and third sets Agnieszka picked up her game as Mattek Sands got tired in the end.
Actress Janet Hubert Talks About Her Problems With Will Smith When She Was On Fresh Prince Of Bell Air!!!
Janet girlfriend you need to let it go! After all these years since Janet was fired from the Fresh Prince of Bel Air in 1993 she still holds a grudge against Will Smith.
I think this is so sad, Janet just looks bitter. I get it that Will was probably very annoying but he still was the star of the show. Janet didn’t play the game but the game
played her.
First Lady Michelle Obama & Talk Show Host Wendy Williams Dismiss The Angry Black Woman Stereotype!
I am glad First Lady Michelle Obama spoke up about the racist and sexist angry black woman stereotype. Since the year 2008, the mainstream media have painted Michelle as an angry black woman because she is very educated, hard working, and she is a feminist! So a woman can’t be strong she’s automatically angry? The press are so sexist and racist! Go Michelle keep your head up girlfriend and don’t let the bigots get to you!
I am impressed with talk show host Wendy Williams decision to discuss the angry black woman image. Wendy is correct a white woman is allowed to be just a “woman” but if a black woman gets upset about something she is labelled as angry. It is not fair and it really pisses me off the way in which the mainstream press attack Michelle Obama.
Gayblackcanada 